Actor Joaquin Phoenix is in talks to join the cast of the Man Of Steel sequel. It is unclear who the Walk the Line star will play in Batman vs. Superman, but he has been linked to the role of Superman's arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor, according to Variety.
Kevin Spacey and Gene Hackman have previously portrayed the villainous Luthor on the big screen and Michael Rosenbaum and John Shea have played the character on TV.
The Man of Steel sequel is shaping up to be quite the star-studded film - Ben Affleck will play Batman, Gal Gadot has signed up to play Wonder Woman and Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Laurence Fishburne will reprise their role from the first film.

Now that you've seen Man of Steel, writer Larry Tye, author of Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero, now out in paperback, contributes this essay exclusively to Hollywood.com on the ways in which Zack Snyder's film differs from established Superman lore.
Now we know. The Man of Steel who for 75 years has emblemized the American way really is a Brit – a native of the Channel Islands and a product of a Buckinghamshire boarding school. Gone, too, are the red underpants our hero has worn outside his leotards for so long they became as central to his identity as the "S" on his chest. Then there is this: Superman is a born-again Christian, one so hell-bent on saving his adopted humanity that he might as well be Jesus himself.
Oy vey. Thankfully Jerry Siegel isn't around to watch Hollywood's latest take on the Jewish-American hero he dreamed up in the spring 1938.
This isn't the first time a live-action Superman has embraced Christ as his role model. In Christopher Reeve's first movie in 1978, a Godlike Marlon Brando dispensed to his son advice straight out of the Book of John – to "show the way" to the Earthlings who "lack the light." On stage in Godspell, Jesus wore a Superman shirt. And in the opening episode of the Smallville television show, a young Clark was hung on a crucifix by a gang of football players. Never before, however, has Superman-as-Christ been as unambiguous as in the new Man of Steel film, where he poses in postures of crucifixion in the air and water, then consults with a priest before a stained-glass portrait of the savior. In case anyone misses the hints, Warner Bros. has commissioned "sermon notes" to help ministers connect the dots for congregants.
Was that what Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had in mind for the muscle-bound hero they dreamed up in the 1930s? Not by half. Evidence of Superman’s actual ethnicity starts with the name his creators gave him on his home planet Krypton: Kal-El. El, in Hebrew, means God, while Kal connotes a voice or vessel. Together they suggest the alien superbaby was not just a Jew, but a very special one. Like Moses. Much as the baby prophet was floated in a reed basket by a mother desperate to spare him from an Egyptian Pharaoh's death decree, so moments before Kal-El's planet blew up, his doomed parents tucked him into a spaceship that rocketed him to the safety of Earth. Both babies were rescued by non-Jews and raised in foreign cultures – Kal-El by Kansas farmers named Kent – and all the adoptive parents quickly learned how exceptional their foundlings were. The narratives of Krypton's birth and death borrow the language of Genesis. Kal-El's escape to Earth is the story of Exodus.
Clues mount from there. The three legs of the Superman myth – truth, justice, and the American way – are straight out of the Mishnah, the codification of Jewish oral traditions. "The world," it reads, "endures on three things: justice, truth, and peace." The destruction of Kal-El's planet rings of the Nazi Holocaust that was brewing when Jerry and Joe were publishing their first comics, and it summons up the effort to save Jewish children through Kindertransports. A last rule of thumb: when a name ends in "man," the bearer is a Jew, a superhero, or in this case, both.
What about Superman's trademark costume – red briefs over blue full-body tights? The bold primary colors and unforgettable uniform made him look every bit the circus acrobat, only stronger, more agile, ready for action. A sure sign of his innocence and confidence was that he didn't mind appearing in public with his underpants showing, much as he chose an alter ego who kept pursuing the prettiest girl even though he seldom got her. All that is flipped on its head in this latest movie, as Superman-Clark lands the alluring Lois with hardly an ounce of effort and with no sign of any underwear he has on.
But Man of Steel's most dramatic departures from script are its choices of story and storyteller. The former is a fusion of origin epic and slam-bang action that it hopes will draw in a new generation to the Superman saga, reel back aging devotees, and set up the sequels that fans embraced, albeit with diminishing enthusiasm, in the Christopher Reeve four-pack. The storyteller, meanwhile, disguises his English brogue but his British roots make clear that the Man from Metropolis now has a global reach.
All of which begs these questions: Will the changes fly, and should they?
The truth is that change is central to the Superman mythos, as over the decades he has evolved more than the fruit fly. In the 1930s he was just the crime fighter we needed to take on Al Capone and the robber barons. In the forties he defended the home front while brave GIs battled overseas. Early in the Cold War he stood up taller than ever for his adopted country, while in its waning days he tried singlehandedly to eliminate nuclear stockpiles. For each era he zeroed in on the threats that scared us most, using powers that grew or diminished depending on the need. So did his spectacles, hair style, even his job title. Each generation got the Superman it needed and deserved. Each change offered a Rorschach test of the pulse of that time and its dreams. Superman, always a beacon of light, was a work in progress.
Superman also always has been a citizen of the world. As early as the 1960s, forty-two countries from Brazil to Lebanon were translating every issue of his American comic book into their native tongues, which gave the Swedes a hero called Stalmannen, the Mexicans a caped cousin named Supernina, the Dutch an intrepid lady reporter whose byline read Louise Laan, and the Arabic world an undercover male reporter named Nabil Fawzi who worked for the newspaper Al-Kawkab Al Yawmi. By now this flying Uncle Sam has written himself into the national folklore from Beirut to Buenos Aires.
Even mixed reviews like those critics gave Man of Steel are part of the Superman tradition. Christopher Reeve’s first film, which set the standard for both Superman and superhero movies, was in the words of Roger Ebert "a wondrous combination of all the old-fashioned things we never really get tired of: adventure and romance, heroes and villains, earthshaking special effects, and – you know what else? Wit." But Vincent Canby of The New York Times seemed to be writing about an entirely different movie, saying that "to enjoy this movie as much as one has a right to expect, one has either to be a Superman nut, the sort of trivia expert who has absorbed all there is to know about the planet Krypton, or to check one's wits at the door."
The real lesson of Superman's long history in radio and movie serials, TV and feature films, is that the only critics who count are ticket buyers, especially pint-sized ones, who helped Man of Steel nearly cover its huge production tab in just its first weekend and set a record for a June opening. For them, the formula is straightforward and starts with the intrinsic simplicity of his story. Little Orphan Annie and Oliver Twist reminded us how compelling a foundling's tale can be, and Superman, the sole survivor of a doomed planet, is a super-foundling. His secret identity might be annoying if we weren't let in on the joke and we didn't have a hero hidden within each of us. He was not just any hero, but one with the very powers we would have: the strength to lift boulders and planets, the speed to outrun a locomotive or a demonic General Zod, and, coolest on anyone's fantasy list, the gift of flight.
Superpowers, however, are just half the equation. More essential is knowing what to do with them, and nobody has a more instinctual sense than Superman of right and wrong. He is an archetype of mankind at its pinnacle. Like John Wayne, he sweeps in to solve our problems. No thank-you needed. He is neither cynical like Batman nor fraught like Spider-Man. For the religious, he can reinforce whatever faith they profess; for nonbelievers he is a secular messiah. The more jaded the era, the more we have been suckered back to his clunky familiarity. So what if the upshot of his adventures is as predictable as with Sherlock Holmes: the good guy never loses. That is reassuring.
Larry Tye was an award-winning journalist at The Boston Globe and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. A lifelong Superman fan, Tye now runs a Boston-based training program for medical journalists. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Satchel, as well as The Father of Spin, Home Lands, and Rising from the Rails, and co-author, with Kitty Dukakis, of Shock. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently writing a biography of Robert F. Kennedy.
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt | Follow Hollywood.com on Twitter @Hollywood_com
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Man of Steel, the Zack Snyder-directed reimagining of Superman, certainly didn't encounter kryptonite at the box office. But we'd venture to say that many of the people who helped propel it to a $116 million weekend haul left the theater scratching their heads. Was that dragon creature upon which Russell Crowe's Jor-El rode over Krypton from the same genus as the flying beasts in Avatar? Why did Harry Lennix and Chris Meloni's military men have more screentime than Laurence Fishburne's Perry White? Is everyone else as disappointed as I am that Michael Shannon didn't scream "Kneel before Zod"? So many questions. Here are eight which we feel we can more or less answer. But beware! Major SPOILERS ahead.
1. Is Man of Steel pretty much just the story of Jesus?Unbelievably, even more so than Superman Returns. Sure, the 2006 picture had Brandon Routh's Son of Krypton endure a kryptonite scourging that would have fit if the movie had been called The Passion of Kal-El. But Man of Steel goes further. It makes it very clear that Superman is 33 years old when he first chooses to don the cape and become a symbol of hope for humanity. His arms are outstretched, crucifix-style, when floating through space. He turns himself in, preparing to sacrifice himself to "save" humankind. And you could sub in God as easily as Jor-El when Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent talks about the "other father" who sent Clark to Earth.
2. Has it ever been established before that one Kryptonian can kill another Kryptonian just by snapping his neck? And wait, I thought Superman had a code never to kill? In any of the main DC Comics universes, Superman has never killed a sentient being. However, in the 1988 comic Superman #22, with art by John Byrne, Superman does kill a General Zod from a "pocket universe" using Gold Kryptonite. The experience does leave him shattered, and he begins to question whether he himself is a dangerous being — moral uncertainty that Henry Cavill's self-righteous Zod-killing Superman in Man of Steel does not seem to possess. Moreover, it hasn't ever been established that a Kryptonian fighting a Kryptonian while on Earth could kill the other just by breaking his neck. You would need Kryptonite to do that or a molecular chamber like in Superman II — where it isn't clear if Zod and his companions actually are killed when they're rendered human. If just snapping Zod's neck could kill him, it makes sense Superman would kill him before he could kill those huddled people with his X-ray vision. But why didn't he kill Zod before the general destroyed much of Metropolis?
3. Have Kryptonians ever had difficulty adapting to Earth's atmosphere in previous Superman storytelling? Not really. This seems to be an invention of screenwriters Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer to make them seem less godlike. Zod and Faora can still fly and repel bullets, but they need to wear breathing masks so as not to be overwhelmed by the low-density atmosphere of Earth.
4. What does Zod’s symbol stand for? As we learn during his incarcerated conversation with reporter Lois Lane, Clark Kent's "S" is actually a Kryptonian symbol that signifies the idea of hope. On the chest of the nefarious General Zod, there lives another symbol (albeit a slightly S-like one in its own right). But if Clark's is hope, then what is Zod’s swirly insignia meant to stand for?
5. Where's Jimmy Olsen? And who the hell is this Steve a**hole? Although we might better remember bumbling photographer Jimmy Olsen from small screen Superman, Daily Planet reporter Steve Lombard (portrayed here by Michael Kelly) is also a character from DC Comics history, first appearing in a 1973 issue.
6. Krypton is a planet with rhino dragons and embryoceans, but people can still give birth vaginally?Essentially, the Kryptonian appears to be built exactly like the standard Earth human, right down to the reproductive organs. Sure, they generally create offspring via some weird kind of undersea embryo system, but there’s at least the option of the old fashioned way.
7. Who Did Superman Vote For?Man Of Steel takes place in the present day, making an adult American citizen Clark Kent eligible to vote in 2012. So who did he vote for? As a bona fide proud Kansan, we might assume he has Red State leanings. Then again, his "S" does stand for "hope," and that is Barack Obama's go-to branding device.
8. Is Jonathan Kent's death exactly the same as that of Helen Hunt's father at the beginning of Twister? Yes.
BONUS QUESTION:
Answer: With a razor.
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt | Follow Hollywood.com on Twitter @Hollywood_com
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In celebration of Superman's 75th anniversary, and the release June 14 of the Son of Krypton's latest big-screen adventure Man of Steel, writer Larry Tye, author of Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero, Now Out In Paperback, contributes this essay exclusively to Hollywood.com on the unique qualities some of the actors who've played Superman — Kirk Alyn, George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, and Henry Cavill — have brought to the role.
Nobody is more All-American than Superman in his red cape, blue tights and bright yellow "S." So how is it that a Brit – a native of the Channel Islands and a product of a Buckinghamshire boarding school, with an English brogue no less – is donning the leotards and cape in the new Man of Steel movie?
Warner Bros' selection of Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill as our newest Superman seems ill-conceived if not profane, the more so coming just as America is celebrating its hero's milestone 75th birthday. But Cavill, a British heartthrob who played the First Duke of Suffolk on the Showtime series The Tudors, wouldn't be the first on-screen Man of Steel to defy convention and, in so doing, to soar higher than even his studio handlers dared dream.
Kirk Alyn, the original live-action Superman, was more a song-and-dance man than an actor, having studied ballet and performed in vaudeville and on Broadway in the 1930s and early forties. That's where he decided to trade in the name he was born with, John Feggo, Jr., for Kirk Alyn, which he felt was better suited to the stage. He appeared in chorus lines and in blackface, modeled for muscle magazines, and performed in TV murder mysteries in the days when only bars had TVs and only dead-end actors performed for the small screen. But he had experience in movie serials, if not in superheroes, so when he got a call from Columbia Pictures in 1948 asking if he was interested in trying out for Superman he jumped into his car and headed to the studio. Told to take off his shirt so the assembled executives could check out his build, the burly performer complied. Then producer-director Sam Katzman instructed him to take off his pants. "I said, 'Wait a minute.' They said, 'We want to see if your legs are any good,'" he recalled forty years later. They were good enough, and fifteen minutes after he arrived, Alyn was hired as the first actor to play a Superman whom fans could see as well as hear.
Alyn and his directors were smart enough not to try and reinvent the character that Bud Collyer had introduced so convincingly to the radio airwaves. “I visualized the guy I heard on the radio. That was a guy nothing could stop,” Alyn said. "That's why I stood like this, with my chest out, and a look on my face saying, 'Shoot me.'" His demeanor said "tough guy" but his wide eyes signaled approachability and mischievousness, just the way creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had imagined their Superman a decade before. Alyn understood, the same way Collyer had, that kids could spot a phony in an instant. If they didn't think Alyn was having fun – and that he believed in Superman – they wouldn't pay to see his movies. His young audience, after all, didn't just admire the Man of Steel. They loved him. Superman was not merely who they dreamed of becoming but who they were already, if only we could see. The good news for them was that Alyn was having fun, and he did believe in his character in a way that these pre-teens and teens appreciated even if movie reviewers wouldn't.
In the 1950s, when Superman was gearing up for television, producer Robert Maxwell and director Tommy Carr screened nearly two hundred candidates who were sure they were him. Most made their living as actors, although some were full-time musclemen. Nearly all, Carr said, "appeared to have a serious deficiency in their chromosome count." So thorough – and perhaps so frustrating – was their search that the executives stopped by the Mr. America contest in Los Angeles. One choice they never seriously considered, despite his later claims, was Kirk Alyn, who had done well enough for the serials but had neither the acting skills nor the looks around which to build a Superman TV series. The search ended the day a barrel-chested B-movie actor named George Reeves showed up on the studio lot.
Maxwell's co-producer had recognized Reeves in a Los Angeles restaurant, seeming "rather forlorn," and suggested he come in for a tryout. He did, the next morning, and "from that moment on he was my first choice," said Carr. "He looked like Superman with that jaw of his. Kirk had the long neck and fine features, but although I like Kirk very much, he never looked the Superman Reeves did." His tough-guy demeanor was no put-on. Standing six-foot-two and carrying 195 pounds, Reeves had been a light-heavyweight boxing champ in college and could have gone further if he hadn't broken his nose seven times and his mother hadn't made him step out of the ring.
The Superman TV show, like other incarnations of his story, turned around the hero himself. Collyer, the first flesh-and-blood Man of Steel, had set the standard. He lowered and raised the timbre of his voice as he switched between Superman and Clark, making the changeover convincing. Maxwell's wife Jessica, the TV dialogue director, would follow Reeves around the set urging him to do the same – but he just couldn't master the switch. The result: a Superman who sounded just like his alter ego. They both swallowed their words. They looked and acted alike. There was no attempt here to make Clark Kent into the klutz he was in the comics. No slouching; no shyness. Reeves portrayed the newsman the way he knew, and that Jessica's husband told him to: hard-boiled and rough-edged, Superman in a business suit. The only differences were that Reeves would shed his rubber muscles and add thick tortoise-shell glasses with no lenses – that was the sum total of his switch to Clark Kent.
But it worked. It worked because fans wanted to be fooled, and because of the way Reeves turned to the camera and made it clear he knew they knew his secret, even if Lois, Jimmy, and Perry didn't. This Superman had a dignity and self-assurance that projected even better on an intimate TV screen than it had in the movies. Reeves just had it somehow. He called himself Honest George, The People's Friend – the same kind of homespun language Jerry and Joe used for their creation – and he suspended his own doubts the way he wanted viewers to. He looked not just like a guy who could make gangsters cringe, but who believed in the righteousness of his hero's cause. His smile could melt an iceberg. His cold stare and puffed-out chest could bring a mob to its knees. Sure, his acting was workmanlike, but it won him generations of fans. Today, when those now grown-up fans call to mind their carefree youth, they think of his TV Adventures of Superman, and when they envision Superman himself, it is George Reeves they see.
Christopher Reeve was an even less likely choice when producers set out to find the right Superman for their 1970s motion picture extravaganza. It wasn't just his honey brown hair and 180 pounds that did not come close to filling out his six-foot-four frame. He had asthma and he sweated so profusely that a crew member would have to blow dry his armpits between takes. He was prep school and Ivy League, with a background in serious theater that made him more comfortable in England's Old Vic than its Pinewood movie lot. He was picked, as he acknowledged, 90% because he looked "like the guy in the comic book . . . the other 10% is acting talent." He also was a brilliant choice. He brought to the part irony and comic timing that harked back to the best of screwball comedy. He had dramatic good looks and an instinct for melding humanism with heroism. "When he walked into a room you could see this wasn't a conventional leading man, there was so much depth he had almost an old movie star feeling," says casting director Lynn Stalmaster. The bean counters loved his price: $250,000, or less than a tenth of what Marlon Brando would get for the modest role as Superman's dad. Director Richard Donner asked Reeve to try on his horned-rimmed glasses. Squinting back at him was Clark Kent. Even his name fit: Christopher Reeve assuming the part made famous by George Reeves. "I didn't find him," Donner would say throughout the production. "God sent him to me."
Superman changed with every artist who filled in his features, writer who scripted his adventures, and even the marketers and accountants who managed his finances and grew his audience. Each could claim partial ownership. Actors like Christopher Reeve did more molding and framing than anyone and could have claimed more proprietorship. With each scene shot it was clearer that he was giving the hero a different face as well as a unique personality. Reeve's Superman would be funnier and more human – if less powerful or intimidating – than any who had proceeded him. He was more of a Big Blue Boy Scout now, in contrast to Kirk Alyn's Action Ace and George Reeves's Man of Steel. In the hands of this conservatory-trained actor, Supes was getting increasingly comfortable baring his soul.
Picking up the role and the mythos now will be English actor Henry Cavill, whose first appearance on the big screen was as Albert Mondego in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). Can Cavill make us believe the way Reeve, Reeves, and Alyn did, and make us embrace a British-accented Man of Metropolis?
History suggests he can – provided he and Warner Bros. remember the formula that has served their hero so brilliantly for 75 years and counting. It starts with the intrinsic simplicity of his story. Little Orphan Annie and Oliver Twist reminded us how compelling a foundling's tale can be, and Superman, the sole survivor of a doomed planet, is a super-foundling. The love triangle connecting Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Superman has a side for everyone, whether you are the boy who can't get the girl, the girl pursued by the wrong boy, or the conflicted hero. His secret identity might have been annoying if we hadn't been let in on the joke and we didn't have a hero hidden within each of us. He was not just any hero, but one with the very powers we would have: the strength to lift boulders and planets, the speed to outrun a locomotive or a bullet, and, coolest on anyone's fantasy list, the gift of flight.
Superpowers, however, are just half the equation. More essential is knowing what to do with them, and nobody has a more instinctual sense than Superman of right and wrong. He is an archetype of mankind at its pinnacle. Like John Wayne, he sweeps in to solve our problems. No "thank you" needed. Like Jesus Christ, he descended from the heavens to help us discover our humanity. He is neither cynical like Batman nor fraught like Spider-Man. For the religious, he can reinforce whatever faith they profess; for nonbelievers he is a secular messiah. The more jaded the era, the more we have been suckered back to his clunky familiarity. So what if the upshot of his adventures is as predictable as with Sherlock Holmes: the good guy never loses. That is reassuring.
There is no getting around the fact that the comic book and its leading man could only have taken root in America. What could be more U.S.A. than an orphaned outsider who arrives in this land of immigrants, reinvents himself, and reminds us that we can reach for the sky? Yet this flying Uncle Sam also has always been global in his reach, having written himself into the national folklore from Beirut to Buenos Aires. If Cavill acknowledges both sides of that legacy, the all-American and the all-world, then he should be able to reel back aging devotees and draw in new ones.
Larry Tye was an award-winning journalist at The Boston Globe and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. A lifelong Superman fan, Tye now runs a Boston-based training program for medical journalists. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Satchel, as well as The Father of Spin, Home Lands, and Rising from the Rails, and co-author, with Kitty Dukakis, of Shock. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is currently writing a biography of Robert F. Kennedy.
Follow Hollywood.com on Twitter@Hollywood_com
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Superman composer John Williams has mixed feelings about the latest reboot of the superhero franchise as he is convinced late actor Christopher Reeve was the ultimate embodiment of the comic book character. Reeve played the lead in four Superman movies before his paralysis in a riding accident in 1995 and his death in 2004, and the part was taken over by Brandon Routh in 2006's Superman Returns, and by British actor Henry Cavill, who plays the lead role in the latest installment, Man of Steel.
However, Williams, who wrote the famous theme music which has been used throughout the superhero series, admits he still can't get used to seeing other actors playing Reeve's most famous role.
He tells Zap2it.com, "I hope it (Man of Steel) will be successful, and I look forward to seeing it. (But) it puts me in mind of the late Chris Reeve, who we all loved so much. It's going to be hard for me, not to let go of the music, but to let go of the idea of Superman being Chris.
"I thought he not only made that project successful, he embodied what all of us imagine Superman to look like if he could be given skin and bone, I think."
Man of Steel will be released next month (Jun13).

Everybody wants to be in the biz — no longer are Netflix, Yahoo, and the newest member of the troupe Crackle.com satisfied with streaming other outlets' material. The latter site has announced that it will be joining its ambitious Internet brethren in broadening its creation of original content, declaring via The Hollywood Reporter that it will be developing its own feature films. And what better way to strut proudly into the glitzy sea of lights that is Hollywood than with a Joe Dirt sequel?
Inscrutably, you read that correctly. Crackle is putting together a follow-up to the 2001 comedy, which will reunite star David Spade with his good-hearted white trash character. As Crackle says of the project: "[This] will break new ground as the first made for digital movie that is a sequel to a hit motion picture."
We last left Dirt a happy man, having finally found the loving family for which he sought through his entire life — among the lot, an affectionate girlfriend Brandy (Brittany Daniels), a doting father figure (Christopher Walken). Where do you think a Joe Dirt sequel will take the original's dysfunctional characters?
Follow Michael Arbeiter on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter
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Aw, another year? Really? More taxes, annoying celebrity Instagram photos, and Taylor Swift boyfriend scandals? That's not what we signed up for when we totally bought into that Mayan Apocalypse thing, universe. We just don't know if we can take another Swifty break-up. We'd take the Rapture any day.
Still, there are some legitimate reasons to be excited that we made it out okay, even without John Cusack's help. From the return of a beloved, quirky sitcom to one of the most badass blockbuster concepts ever, behold our top 10 reasons to be excited for 2013:
Big-Screen Blockbusters
Pacific Rim: Pacific Rim is a Guillermo del Toro-directed sci-fi thriller, where the likes of Jax from Sons of Anarchy (Charlie Hunnam), Stringer Bell from The Wire (Idris Elba), and Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Charlie Day) team up to create giant, man-controlled robots to fight the alien monsters who sprouted from a crack in the ocean. If you're not already peeing yourself, we can't help you.
Man of Steel: What our world needs most — even more than its own Superman — is a good movie about Superman. After the disastrous Superman Returns incident of 2006, we were hesitant when it was announced that Henry Cavill (The Tudors) would put on the suit for yet another remake. But when we learned that Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark... you get our drift) would produce, and when the stellar cast assembled, we felt better. Then the trailer came out, and now we're just ridiculously excited.
Star Trek Into Darkness: We really enjoyed the franchise's first go-round back in 2009, and having J.J. Abrams back at the helm — as well as American Horror Story baddie Zachary Quinto as Spock — gives us confidence for the sequel. Oh, and Benedict Cumberbatch plays the villain, so there's that.
NEXT: Small-screen wondersReally Good TV
The Following: We've already seen the pilot for the new Kevin Williamson drama, which stars James Purefoy as a behind-bars serial killer with a terrifying worldwide following (get it?) and Kevin Bacon as the FBI agent who has no choice but to stop him. It. Is. Terrifying. Also, it's unlike anything you've ever seen on network TV. Do give it a shot — unless you enjoy sleeping at night.
Arrested Development: New episodes of Arrested Development seven years after its cancellation? Come on! This must be an illusion, Michael. But it's true — production began last summer, and 12-15 episodes (featuring cameos by beloved guest stars like Liza Minnelli, Henry Winkler, Mae Whitman, and Judy Greer) will premiere on Netflix early this year. But one major question remains — whatever happened to Steve Holt?
Bates Motel: A weekly look into the relationship between Psycho's resident psycho (Norman Bates) and his mother, starring the kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Freddie Highmore) and movie star Vera Farmiga? Sounds pretty cool. Add some enticing trailers and the fact that it's produced by Lost guru Carlton Cuse, and we're sold.
The Americans: FX has proven itself to be a go-to network for quality drama (we're talking to you, Sons of Anarchy, Justified, and American Horror Story), and the idea of a show about Cold War KGB agents posing as everyday Americans is pretty awesome — especially when you throw in Keri Russell as the main agent, who is in an arranged marriage with another agent (Matthew Rhys). Oh yeah, and they have kids who have no idea that their parents could be activated at any second.
NEXT: From the page to the screen (finally)
Our Favorite Books, As Movies
The Great Gatsby: “He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” Sigh. We love you, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and we're hoping that Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Baz Luhrmann and co. do you justice. If not, that'd be a bigger crime than hitting Myrtle with a car.
Ender's Game: Here's a reason to stick around until November: A big-screen adaptation of Orson Scott Card's devastating sci-fi novel Ender's Game! The story of a brilliant boy whose childhood is stolen when he's picked to save the world from aliens has been haunting parents and kids alike for generations, and we can't wait to see what director Gavin Hood can do with it.
World War Z: Sorry, Walking Dead — we love you, but Max Brooks' World War Z is arguably the greatest work of zombie fiction in the land. The things human beings will do for survival — and they ultimately do survive — when faced with fear, abandonment, and uncertainty are explored via multiple eyewitness accounts told to a U.N. employee in the novel. The film is taking a different approach — the U.N. employee (played by Brad Pitt) isn't trying to explore the catastrophe after the fact, he's the tried and true action hero trying to save the day. We like the first idea better, but are excited to see what Marc Forster has done with the source material.
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In many ways, every young actor strives for immortality. They work to build a career of indelible performances and unforgettable films so that their names will be heralded in conversations and discussions long after they have shuffled free of the mortal coil.
When audiences invade theaters to watch Tarsem Singh’s Immortals this weekend, they’ll see many up and coming young stars vie for their attention, hoping to capture the prize of becoming a household name for years to come. Here’s the lowdown on the fresh faces ready to duke it out in Ancient Greece:
Henry Cavill
British actor Henry Cavill, who plays Greek hero Theseus, is definitely someone with whom you are going to want to be familiar before 2013. Appearing in theatrical productions since boarding school and long since making the leap to film, Cavill previously appeared in The Count of Monte Cristo, Tristan &amp; Isolde, and Blood Creek (the latter being a film that comes with the highest of personal recommendations). Most recently, Cavill appeared as Henry VIII’s good friend Charles Brandon on the acclaimed Showtime original series The Tudors. Cavill has been making headlines across the web of late, as he will be the new Superman in Zack Synder’s Man of Steel, flying into theaters in June of 2013.
Frieda Pinto
The beautiful Frieda Pinto portrays priestess Phaedra, who must team with our hero Theseus to stop the evil King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). In 2008, Frieda made a splash with critics and audiences alike with her performance in Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, where she played the long-adored love interest of the film’s young hero. Her beauty and ability to capture the hearts of audiences was undeniable. Earlier this year she appeared opposite James Franco, and a very empathetic chimp named Caesar, in the late summer hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes. As a sequel to RotPotA is currently in the works, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Frieda in the future.
Isabel Lucas
Playing the goddess Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, courage, and warfare, the cast of Immortals also boasts the lovely Isabel Lucas. The Australian born Lucas is most recognizable as the drop-dead beauty/robot assassin, who seduces, then tries to kill Sam in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Lucas may not have gotten to showcase much more than her “natural assets” in the Transformers sequel, but her performance in 2009’s excellent sci-fi/horror flick Daybreakers more than proved her acting prowess. Lucas has been cast alongside Thor’s Chris Hemsworth and Watchmen’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the remake of Red Dawn slated for next year.
Luke Evans
Charged with portraying Zeus, the god of all Greek gods and king of Mt. Olympus, Luke Evans may have the most pertinent experience on his resume of any of his young castmates. Evans has already appeared in several big screen epics including Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers, which only hit theaters two weeks ago. On top of that, landing this role in Immortals doesn’t even mark the first time Evans has played a Greek god. He also portrayed Apollo, the god of music and poetry, in last year’s 3D remake of Clash of the Titans. Evans has several exciting projects in line to follow Immortals: He will appear alongside John Cusack in the crime thriller The Raven as well as in both segments of Peter Jackson’s mammoth fantasy epic The Hobbit.
Kellan Lutz
Also among the denizens of Mt. Olympus, Kellan Lutz will portray Poseidon, Greek god of the sea. Lutz first appeared on the big screen in the 2006 gymnastics comedy Stick It and has been landing impressive credits ever since, including turns in remakes of both Prom Night and A Nightmare on Elm Street. In 2008, Lutz appeared as Cpl. Jason Lively in the phenomenal HBO miniseries Generation Kill—a must see for anyone interested in gritty, authentic depictions of modern warfare. But the role for which he will probably be most recognized by the widest audience is that of Emmet Cullen in the Twilight franchise. In addition to Immortals, you can bet your sparkly complexion that he’ll be back later this month for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 and again for the concluding chapter next year.

When the first images and trailers for Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) hit the web, the comparisons to 300 and Clash of the Titans were inevitable—a stylized, Greek mythology-infused action movie, where have we seen that before?
But as more and more of the movie revealed itself, the artistry behind the latest swords and sandals epic came into light. 300 had a glossy, otherworldly look. Immortals just looks…nuts.
And that's a good thing. Soon-to-be-Superman Henry Cavill leads an eclectic cast, comprised of master veterans (Mickey Rourke, John Hurt) and youthful up-and-comers (Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz, Isabel Lucas, Frieda Pinto), clad in shiny armor, flowing threads and looking even more hyperrealistic than their cinematic Greek predecessors.
Not letting the rules of physics get in the way of a dazzling shot, Tarsem has fully embraced the Godly aspects of Immortals and the results are explosive. This year, Thor turned magic and fantasy into a digestible superhero formula, but it might be Immortals that really blows us away.
Check out the trailer at MSN, then click the image for a closer look at Immortals
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches and @Hollywood_com